Critic's Notebook: New Orleans favourites

I was in New Orleans two weeks ago, strolling through the French Quarter, gawking at the scantily clad girls on Bourbon St. and wolfing back some of the best food I’ve had in ages.

On my to-do list was to taste the Official Cocktail of the City of New Orleans, the Sazerac. Roaming the streets and coming upon a bar at most every corner, it was tough to decide where to find the best. There’s nothing worse than a half-hearted cocktail, so in search of the quintessential experience, I turned to Jerry, the doorman of my hotel and clearly a fellow who knows his cocktails.

Jerry recommended the Sazerac Bar in the newly restored Roosevelt Hotel, where I met mixologist Charles Potera, a native New Orleanian who has been mixing up some mean Sazeracs in the city since 1976. “It’s the best-selling drink in the bar,” he says. “Half the customers order a Sazerac, and they don’t just stop at one.”

Originally made with Cognac, the Sazerac is a drink now based on rye whiskey, and preferably the Sazerac 18-year-old Kentucky Straight Rye that lines the shelves of the Sazerac Bar. The 130-year-old drink was also once flavoured with absinthe, but when absinthe was banned, locals came up with a pastis-type spirit called Herbsaint. Even though absinthe has made a comeback, New Orleanians still make their Sazeracs with Herbsaint.

At first sip, it’s hard to imagine getting through even one of these cocktails. The initial taste is definitely on the cough syrup-side of the flavour spectrum. Yet as you sip away, the drink unfolds in layers with spice, sugar, bitters and even small twist of lemon peel creating quite the taste sensation. I drank mine at 10 in the morning, and had it been lunchtime, I would have gladly ordered another. It might seem a bit odd to sip a Sazerac outside of New Orleans, but if you’re game, try Charles’s recipe:

Spray the inside of an Old-Fashioned glass with Herbsaint, absinthe, or any other pastis-type spirit, or add a teaspoonful to the glass, swirl it around to coat the interior and spill out any excess. In a large glass filled with ice, combine 11⁄2 ounces (3 tablespoons, 45 mL) of rye whiskey such as Wild Turkey (no Bourbon!), 4 drops of bitters (Peychaud is classic but you can use Angostura), and 1⁄4 ounce (11⁄2 teaspoons, 7 mL) simple syrup. Stir gently for 30 seconds (never shake a Sazerac!), then strain the liquid into the prepared glass. Twist a lemon peel over the drink (it’s important that a few drops of the lemon oil hit the surface), run the peel around the rim of the glass, then add as garnish.

The other cocktail you’ll hear about in New Orleans is the Hurricane famously served at Pat O’Brien’s piano bar on Bourbon St. Sweet and cloying, The Hurricane packs an alcoholic wallop. Tourists suck back Hurricanes at an alarming rate, but in New Orleans, the locals drink Sazeracs.

When I first planned a trip to New Orleans, my food knowledge of the city was limited to chef Paul Prud’homme’s Louisiana Kitchen cookbook (Morrow, 1984), word-of-mouth recommendations and information I had gleaned from websites and message boards.

But for anyone planning a trip to New Orleans, I’d now recommend one book: Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table, by Sara Roahen (Norton, 2008).

A Wisconsin native, Roahen arrived in New Orleans in 2000 and worked as a restaurant critic for a local weekly. As only an outsider could, she immediately set about discovering all the traditions and food customs of her adopted city. No matter how glamourous or desolate the restaurant location, Roahen revels in everything about the city and its people.

Follow her to the table at Galatoire’s to taste the classic trout amandine, obscure Vietnamese restaurants to sample duck blood salad, Creole cooking icon Leah Chase’s kitchen to make gumbo z’herbes, and around the Crescent City to taste most every single overstuffed po-boy.

Divided into 16 chapters, each devoted to a New Orleanian dish, restaurant, custom, or cocktail, Gumbo Tales makes for a compelling read when you factor in the aftermath of Katrina, as several of the smaller restaurants and food legends profiled in these pages did not survive the hurricane.

Roahen was in the city long enough before Katrina to provide a before-and-after profile of the people who steamed the crayfish, shaved the ice for the snow cones and baked the oysters Rockefeller.

What makes me admire this book most is the writing. Roahen is the central character in her story, who starts off life in the Big Easy eating tacos, admits defeat when faced with a turducken and mispronounces most every food term the first time around. But we also follow her in victory as she goes native, ordering the big oysters, downing Sazeracs, having her picture posted at Hansen’s Sno-Blitz Sweet Shop and making crawfish bisque from scratch.

As much as I wished I had read Gumbo Tales before travelling to New Orleans, after reading through Roahen’s adventures, I now have ample reason to return.

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